orld in the
hollow of his hands. Are you prepared to be convinced?"

"Of what?" replied the Kaiser, coldly.

"That there will be no world left to conquer after midnight on the 12th
of May next, or to put it otherwise, that unless our terms are accepted,
and Mr Lennard carries out his work, there will be neither victors nor
vanquished left on earth."

"Gentlemen," replied the Kaiser, "you will pardon me when I say that I
am surprised beyond measure that you should have come to me with a
schoolboy's tale like that. The eternal order of things cannot be
interrupted in such a ridiculous fashion. Again, I trust you will
forgive me when I express my regret that you should have wasted so much
of your own time and mine on an errand which should surely have appeared
to you fruitless from the first.

"Whoever or whatever this gentleman may be," he continued with a wave of
his hand towards Lennard, "I neither know nor care; but that yourself
and Lord Kitchener should have been deceived so grossly, I must confess
passes the limits of my imagination. Frankly, I do not believe in the
possibility of such proofs as you allude to. As regards peace, I propose
to discuss terms with King Edward in Windsor--not before, nor with
anyone else. Gentlemen, I have other matters to attend to, and I have
the honour to bid you good-evening."

"And that is your Majesty's last word?" said Lord Kitchener. "You mean a
fight to the finish?"

"Yes, my lord," replied the Kaiser, "whether the world finishes with the
fight or not."

"Very well then," said Lennard, taking an envelope from the
breast-pocket of his coat, and putting it down on the table before the
Emperor. "If your Majesty has not time to look through those papers,
you will perhaps send them to Berlin and take your own astronomer's
report upon them. Meanwhile, you will remember that our terms are:
Unconditional surrender of the forces invading the British Islands or
the destruction of the world. Good-night."

CHAPTER XXVIII

CONCERNING ASTRONOMY AND OYSTERS

In spite of the bold front that he had assumed during the interview, the
strain, not exactly of superstition but rather of supernaturalism which
runs so strongly in the Kaiser's family, made it impossible for him to
treat such a tremendous threat as the destruction of the world as an
alternative to universal peace by any means as lightly as he appeared to
his visitors to do; and when the audience was over he picked up t